


By The Sand

by Katherine



Category: The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21774742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: The Shivering Sand formed no conventional romantic view, but had a virtue stemming from the ugliness, which was that very few people indeed used up their time in walking there.
Relationships: Rosanna Spearman/Lucy Yolland
Comments: 14
Kudos: 13
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	By The Sand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thefourthvine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefourthvine/gifts).



The Shivering Sand formed no conventional romantic view, but had a virtue stemming from the ugliness, which was that very few people indeed used up their time in walking there. Barren and flat as the place was, it was impossible not to spot any other person who did for some strange reason decide to make his or her way near. The next best thing to a private place that was entirely shut away from disturbance, a luxury possessed neither by a grown daughter who lived in a parents' cottage nor by a woman in service, was such a place when one could see anyone on the way to disturb them. They therefore had privacy, in the cold outdoors but far worth that discomfort, or indeed any pain that could come upon Lucy if she over-used her lame foot in getting to the place.

Perhaps Lucy would miss the ocean, once she lived in London. She had after all known it all of her life, and she a fisherman's daughter. Well then, if that turned out to be so for her, it would be worth the loss. Better to be in a place that was not in itself agreeable, when she was in the company of Rosanna; Lucy knew that well from their time together by the Sand. A place where they could lean near to each other, touch hands, entwine arms, daringly kiss... As ugly as the Shivering Sand or as the dirt and smoke of London was said to be. Ugly as sin it might be, yet the idea of London, the expected future, was to Lucy made as beautiful as their truth, hidden in solitude. 

Rosanna had at the very first been reluctant about Lucy's plan for London, murmuring protestations that there were places and people there that she should avoid. Those of her past life, before the reformatory. Yet she was not altogether opposed, even at the beginning, and her reluctance soon softened.

Lucy found herself gradually admitting into herself the thought that part of Rosanna's motivation for the plan was wishing to get away from the house. To get away altogether from being in service, having to hold herself penitent and right in her work. But if making a life with Lucy was not the entirety of Rosanna's motive, it was by far the most important.

*

As was so often their way, they sat by the Sand this day, with hands clasped together. It was a gesture which to Lucy felt, inevitably, not a patch as good as kissing did. Still, although creating less excitement, the touch of hands was as sure as that of their lips. Long since familiar.

Lucy stretched her free hand to her crutch, laid conveniently by, and fidgeted with that while Rosanna talked. The honest truth is that she hardly ever much wanted to hear about the house where Rosanna served, or the doings of their "betters". Nevertheless, she accepted times being told about such topics, on occasions when Rosanna was all too obviously near bursting with what she wished to say.

Today's latest was to do with the upcoming birthday of Rachel. (Miss Verinder, that would be to say correctly, but Lucy could be as over-familiar as she wished in the privacy of her own mind.) Rosanna had heard news from Rachel's own maid, and the word had spread to all the servants who cared to listen. Although that spreading word was not of Rosanna's doing; she was not one who carried tales, and she could be trusted with secrets. All the more so when so much of her life, past and present, was held within secrets.

A cousin, one who acted the foreigner in several ways were Betteredge's descriptions of the cousin's boyhood, elaborately told to any who would listen and re-told to Lucy at this point, were to be relied upon. This man who had been expected to visit for the occasion was not after all to do so. Rachel had, so Rosanna told Lucy now, been in a frank sulk about it, and in her fits of temper was adding difficulty to lives of those in service in her home. As if the absence of one man, gentleman or no, was of importance.

It was true that Rosanna's mentioning were about her own frustrations, all too often, in addition to the loneliness of being nearly ignored by the other servants. However, those would fade into the past. Lucy had an abundance of plans to keep Rosanna from ever again feeling lonely. They two would have far happier days than these, days beyond the restrictions of service and of family. Once they were away and together, every day and the entire rest of their lives, at last. 

*

There were snatched times when, up in Lucy's room, they practiced their stitching side by side. Lucy was ever the slower at this of the two of them, not helped when she dallied in her work to watch Rosanna.

Lucy's heart fairly leapt in her chest on the occasion of Rosanna giving her a handkerchief, monogramed for her. The stitches in the corner marked out no curlicued capital, but a mere L as in print, two sides of a square. Yet this represented herself, from Rosanna's own hands; she would treasure it. Lucy rubbed her thumb over and over the precise lines.

"L for Lucy," Rosanna said, unnecessarily. L for Love, Lucy thought. Instead of speaking that, she touched her lips to Rosanna's, sinking into one of their kisses beyond counting.

Lucy herself soon took the time to mark a clean-edged new handkerchief, ready to give a matching token. Never so quick with her stitching as was Rosanna, but the small task went by quickly, in quiet moments when she was alone. Perhaps she could have added flourishes, but the plain letter was enough.

"R for Rosanna, and R for Remembrance," she said, quiet and daring, when she privately presented it. Yet surely for all love (and Lucy was overflowing with that) Rosanna would not need to have a token, not once Lucy lived with her, to remind her each day.

There could not quickly enough come the day when they lived together, snug in some London garret, earning their small necessary living honestly side by side. To have such a line of happy days, long and secure as a row of stitching.


End file.
